Mohsen Mahdawi was detained last April by masked ICE agents at what he believed was a citizenship interview in Vermont. He had grown up in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, lived in the United States for a decade as a lawful permanent resident, co-founded Columbia University’s Palestinian Student Union, and graduated in May. He was arrested for his speech. He spent two weeks in federal custody before a judge ordered his release.

Now, an immigration judge has terminated the Trump administration’s deportation case against him — not on the merits, but because the government’s lawyers failed to authenticate a key document: a memo attributed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio claiming that Mahdawi’s pro-Palestinian activism would have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the United States. Judge Nina Froes found the document inadmissible as evidence because the administration submitted a photocopy without a witness to attest to its validity or explain how it was obtained.

“No witness was produced to explain what this document is, how it was obtained and to attest to its validity,” Froes wrote. The case was terminated without prejudice, meaning the government could refile. As of the ruling’s publication, it had not said whether it would.

Mahdawi’s case is not isolated. It is part of a pattern. Fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in March 2025 and has been fighting deportation proceedings ever since. Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained for an op-ed she wrote in her campus newspaper. Al Jazeera reported that human rights advocates have described the administration’s targeting of foreign-born student activists as a campaign to chill free speech on campus — using immigration law as a tool to suppress constitutionally protected political dissent.

“This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice,” Mahdawi said in a statement released through the ACLU of Vermont. “In a climate where dissent is increasingly met with intimidation and detention, today’s ruling renews hope that due process still applies.”

The Trump administration’s DHS responded by calling Mahdawi a leader of “pro-terrorist riots” and vowing to continue pursuing his removal. No charges have ever been filed against him.